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Paragraph Sandwiches

Teach students how to create a fantastic paragraph with this wonderful "sandwich" idea. It will allow students to learn the basics and get them thinking about what is needed to write great paragraphs for any audience!

MATERIALS:

• an overhead with writing lines

• a construction paper "sandwich" (2 slices of bread, a piece of meat, a tomato, some lettuce, a piece of cheese)

• small versions of the above construction paper sandwich for each child

PROCEDURE:

Discuss the ingredients that are essential to making a good sandwich.

Show students the kind of sandwich you are going to make by illustrating on the board the "essential elements" in your sandwich, and the order with which you will create it. Discuss the need for a piece of bread on the top and a piece of bread on the bottom to hold the sandwich together.

Direct the students to see that a paragraph is just like a sandwich. It needs an opening sentence and a closing sentence to hold the paragraph together. Just like the bread, the opening and closing may look almost the same. They will basically state the same thing, using different words.

Explain that just as the ingredients inside the sandwich are needed to make it taste good, the "ingredients" inside a paragraph are needed to make it sound good. The ingredients inside the paragraph are referred to as it's supporting details.

Choose a theme for the demonstration paragraph and write a topic sentence on the first piece of bread. Think of supporting detail sentences together. Then write a closing sentence on the bottom piece of bread. Rewrite the topic, detail and closing sentences in correct paragraph form on the lined overhead sheet so that the class can see the paragraph taking shape. Make sure you indent to show students that they must do this to alert the reader that a new paragraph is being formed.

Give the students time to create their own sandwiches. As they finish writing sentences on each piece, staple them to the top of a writing paper. Have students write their paragraphs on this writing paper in correct form.

The "sandwich paragraphs" may then be displayed 
on a bulletin board or in the hallway.